Hi guys.

Hi guys.

Hello everyone. First I would like to say thank you to everyone who posts here. The information on this forum is unbelievably helpful. My name is Cody, and I am in the process of converting a sno cone stand to fit my needs. I had a quick question. When you first opened the doors, or awning, to your food truck or trailer, did you also have a regular full or part time job? Im sure some people worked festivals on the weekend, and a regular 9-5 through the week.

I am planning on keeping a part time job while I serve lunch out of my trailer. My girlfriend will be helping with prep. My menu will consist of comfort foods...ie fish and chips, chicken and waffles, etc. I have 13 years experience working in restaurants, 5 of that was as sous chef. Graduated culinary school 6 years ago.

The best way to get an idea of if you can make your business into a full time business is to run some pro-forma P & L's. First determine the personal income you need to earn in order to meet all your living expenses and money needed for you and your family if you have one to live on. Then do some P & L pro-forma's for the business to see how much gross revenue you need to generate in order to net the amount of money you need in personal income to meet your obligations. For example, if you need to generate $5000 a month in personal NET income AFTER taxes, you probably need $ 6000 in gross income per month. How much gross revenue would a business need to generate in order to let you take home $ 6000, before taxes, every month? Let's assume you could NET a 20% NET profit from the business after all your expenses - Food cost, operating expenses, taxes, Etc. You would need to generate $360,000. in annual gross revenue to net $72000 in annual NET revenue or $6000 a month net income from the business to meet your personal income needs. How much product would you need to sell in order to generate $360,000 in sales? If your average ticket/sale is $5.00, you would need 6000 transactions a month to generate the monthly gross revenue of $30K that would give you the income you would need to meet your personal needs net income requirement.Another way to look at it is to say you'll net a Buck on every $5 sale you make. (That's 20%) These are just hypothetical numbers. You'd need to sit down and actually cost out everything from a personal as well as a business side in order to get a better picture. This exercise is just to outline how to run the numbers. Unless you can generate the numbers, don't quit your day job.

SS, Welcome to Roadfood. I would take the money problems out of the equation. That means you work, she preps. Keep the menu simple and good. The fish and chips is easy, do fresh cut fries. The Chicken and waffles are also easy, but, your fryer is working overtime. Do only the items you know are killer, build your business with the best food you know how to cook. Don't practice on the public, everyone that eats at your trailer needs to tell you Thanks, this food is great. Find time to walk out of the trailer and talk with your customers, they will tell you how you doing and what they would like to see you serve............Good luck...............pnwchef